Can you remember a time when you tried to pay someone a compliment and they immediately reacted as if completely shocked or embarrassed? Or maybe, you were the person on the receiving end and felt a bit uncomfortable and not capable of responding with gratefulness?

In today’s society, it’s very rare for anyone to hand out compliments for free. To compliment someone “just because.” Perhaps that’s why we are so surprised when a friend, or even a total stranger, approaches us to tell us that we have a pretty smile, a cute jacket, or that they find us beautiful.

There has actually been research which shows that other people see you as 20 percent more attractive than you believe you are. This is because when we look into the mirror every single day, we are judging ourselves on looks alone. Nitpicking on how dried out our skin looks, overthinking the size of our nose, or worrying that everyone will notice we didn’t wash our hair for three days. The fact of the matter is, what you see in the mirror is only a fraction of who you are.

True beauty isn’t just about being physically perfect, it’s about a hell of a lot more than just that.

In the video above, Shea Glover conducted an arts project at her high school. Let’s just say things didn’t go quite as planned.

After students and teachers agreed to let her photograph them for a project she was working on, they were totally caught of f guard when she told them she was taking pictures of things she “finds beautiful.”

What began as just a project, transformed into a social experiment on beauty and self-worth.